The National Center recently convened an engaging meeting to set a research and evaluation agenda aimed at building a business case for interprofessional practice and education.  Colleagues from around the country—many of them members of the Nexus innovations incubator—convened in Minneapolis for  two and half days, where they explored approaches for testing innovative ideas and creating new knowledge that will lead to a sustainable transformation of the U.S. health care workforce. 

The Nexus innovations incubator is a network of higher education and health system partners who are committed to studying and advancing interprofessional practice and education. During the meeting, incubator members developed plans for testing new organizational, care delivery and learning models in real-world settings, within the context of their local environments.

The incubator teams were guided through the planning process by expert guests and visitors, including Ivy Oandason, MD, associate professor and clinician investigator, department of family and community medicine, University of Toronto; and Scott Reeves, PhD, editor of the Journal of Interprofessional Care.

Teams will examine factors around:

• interprofessional education, or approaches for preparing team-ready health professionals;
• collaborative practice, or models of team-based health-focused practice;
• the Nexus, or the interaction between health professions education and health systems; and
• health outcomes, or the health status of individuals and populations who benefit from interprofessional practice and education.

One participant reflected on the progress made during the meeting and the role of the National Center. “Much of the value of the National Center comes from its role as a catalyst for change,” said Everette James, director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Health Policy Institute. “We are all being catalyzed to move forward, toward a new reality in health care.”